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Looking forward to trying and reach Brig Gen rank which requires playing more SftF.

My question is what SFtF are recommended and which ones should be avoided. I know there are a number that use units / rules that are not currently supported and probabaly more than a few that are not very good at all.

So anyone's thoughts which can steer me in the right direction here would be welcome.

Recommendations? I have none unfortunately, when invited I have always played those SFTF or just picked those from the list that looked interesting and of course, since becoming aware of Looney's tournaments, from the tail end of the Med Front, thru the Eastern Front and now the Pac Front, have played plenty of those, both in practice and in matches.

Some, as you mentioned, work well with most of the rules, one I can't recall the name, some rules don't work and have played them w/o applying the rule, I go with my opponent's discretion on that one.

Can always send the spreadsheet from my battles pages, unless you can also access them and you can see which ones I have played, besides the obvious ones from Looney's tourneys.

As I stated on the BG thread, took me 1 year and 1 week from promotion of Colonel, 09-18-12 to BG, 9-27-13.

As also stated there, I have just always played and have no idea of what is required for promotion and have somehow managed to get to BG!! The only common thread between the 2 promotions that I saw, played and won an SFTF scenario the day before promotion, won and played a standard scenario the day after and got promoted, in between, plenty of battles!! Think I posted a # of 647, standard and SFTF, on the BG thread.

Good luck with your promotion and enjoy the journey!! I may not have, obviously, steered you in the right direction, but remember, you can always turn around and head in the opposite direction!!

I shall look a bit of them. Looney's scenarios are always a good start, for sure.

As to what it takes to become a BG. It may be too hard of a puzzle to try and figure out as to what is needed. If some games played during your career (before you got to Col) count towards the promo to BG, then this of course makes it that much harder.

If you are playing Johnny/Hermann, don't play a scenario where he has to defend medal sites; he doesn't know how. He does know how to take his medal sites.

I find it exasperating that some people will play a scenario against Johnny (sometimes losing both sides) then rate it one star. The rating system works like this:
*** Like it
** Don't like it
* Really don't like it
So some 2-star games are OK. It seems that some scenarios are popular because they have lots of "stuff" (terrain, obstacles, units, rules).

Back when I played SFTF after making Colonel, I'd private message people who posted scenarios that don't work correctly in the hopes they'd pull them or fix them. Some were so bad I didn't go back for a rematch.

I found "Stalingrad 1942" was a bad one that some people rated highly. The elite troops didn't have badges and there were no English rules. (French rules say the four factory medals are permanent, lone medal in corner is temporary). I sent a private message this year and last year to the author/poster, but he hasn't been on Days of Wonder since before last year's message.

I like playing scenarios that are official, but there are a great many that aren't available for M'44 Online, and a few that could be. When I first got the board game, one of my favorites was "Po Valley". It's basic, but different, and both sides have a fighting chance. In the Online game, empty bunkers on hills don't block line of sight, so Days of Wonder didn't post this and two other scenarios last December. I didn't author it, but am currently posting it for the next month, under the title "Italy: The Gothic Line", which was its original name.

"Battle of the Bridgehead" (The day after D-DAY) is another "official" scenario being posted in SFTF. It's Basic vanilla, but it's an even 50/50. If a scenario is between 40% and 60%, it might be OK.

There's a lot of very good maps to play on SFTF mode from my point of view.
A good entry point is to play first the 3 stars maps. That means than designers have well documented the map and than at least several players have enjoyed them.

I hav a "file" in which I rate and describe the SFTF's I have played. I rate from 0 to 10 and these are some 8's I have given. So I see them as playabale and enjoyable. Not all of these have rules that are supported.

I think these are currently on-line (I also have reviewed many that are not online at the moment.

Mediterranean: none of my 8's are online at the moment. (And only one of them is not a LooneyLlama scenario )

Pacific:

Battle of Sangshak Ver 2.0 (Hamblylake) 8
Good solid jungle battle with lots of options and tactics to try out.

Battle of the Tennis Court (Ghostbrigades 19) 8
Bugs: Description is off: allied tanks can only move two
HQ capture rule does not work

It plays well, a lot of units and the ridge in the middle gives some positioning to do. But there will usually be a slugfest in the middle.

Eastern:

Victory at Stalingrad (Jokull) 8
Hard for the Germans (but historically correct) they need to defend Stalingrad against overwhelming opposing Russian forces. The Germans need a little bit of luck with the cards but the Russians have their commissar to deal with.

And the above mentioned Stalingrad 1942 (fr) get's an 8 as well despite it's faults.
I find that more french players tend to not tag their special forces. Not having a description is not easy but right clicking on units will get you a little bit further. The medals are very hard to understand without the description. Sometimes I log in as a frenchy to get names of developers and some of the rules.

Back to the scenario which I do like to play:
Bugs: Special Forces are not marked.
Something with the objective medals in the factory works strange also. I think one medal is permanent for getting there and others are temporary.
No text in GB part

Cat and mouse game on the ice plains outside Stalingrad. Lots of the terrain in the way. The Germans need to plan their attack carefully and position their troops just right. Russia on the defence.

Some I have rated 8 but not written a description:
Operation Bagration
Malinovka
Frankfurt an der Oder

Defense of Kyiv, 1941, v4.0 (mescalito) 8
Nice scenario, lots of terrain, so you have to think how to position your units. The Germans need a well planned attack to get through Russian defences. As the Germans I try to destroy the left arty of the Russians

Festung Breslau (arturopala) 8
Very nice scenario, hard for the Russians to set up a coordinated attack.

Berlin (van Voort) 8
A hard nut to crack from both sides, the germans have a very good defensive position, but only three cards. They can't get a decent "flow"; going and go at it haphazardly. The Russians have to get an attack going in one of the sections but have a hard time crossing the water.

Braskir Offensive (player951949) 8
Very enjoyable scenario, lots of stuff to do and lots of terrain, but the tanks can play too.

Chessboard on Hill (échiquier sur collines) 8
Bugs: -
Lots of units and terrain think ahead or perish. LooneyLlamalike
Russian inforcements need to get over the bridge to help you in the battle.

On the Western front I am not even halfway through playing the SFTF scenarios.
On the other fronts I have played all the scenarios against Johnny at least. Some of them, as stated above, johnny is not very good at, but you still get an idea if the scenario is playable against a human. So some of those have tried to play against humans to see how that went. (Mostly the humans outperform Johnny easily, but sometimes. . . . . )

So if you want my tips for western front let me know.

disclaimer: my rating or review of a scenario is highly subjective and also influenced by my state of mind at the time of playing. (I tend to rate scenarios higher if they are more tactical and if they are more difficult for me to win. So some 8's should be 7's and some of my 7's should be 8's. But My numbers are what I felt was right at the time of playing.)
The review are very short and some might be unclear because I wrote them only for personal use. So if you want clarification ask me.

What Jeronimon said.
And as has been mentioned, try to work out who are good players - they usually make good maps too. So if you play an experienced player - ask them if they have made any SFTF that are worth playing.
Also - remember that if you can get the author to invite you, you only need to pay 2 credits to play (if he invites from his list of games and not from the public list).

Personal favorite is Jokull - he always makes good maps - but many of the other authors mentioned are also make very good maps.

A note on "crowded" maps. You can make maps for online play that would just be ridiculous for a boardgame version, because the entire map is covered with tiles. Some very interesting "crowded maps" are among the best of the SFTFs (Berlin by van Voort for instance).